In Another Life
by Rosa Lui
Summary: A Compilation of Unconnected Oneshots. #12: Sasuke time travels and Kakashi is, surprisingly, not an idiot. Sequel to 'The One Where There's Time Travel.'
1. Time Travel

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. :3

**A/N:** I wrote this after reading one too many time travel fics where the time-traveler was suddenly A God Who Knew Everything, and all the adults were Morons Who Needed To Be Shown Up. Especially since, in a society where _little kids _know how to create a _henge_, of course trained ninja would be on the lookout for imposters and know how to spot behavioral differences from a mile away. .;

* * *

**The One Where There's Time Travel**

* * *

It hadn't been hard, in the end.

The Mangekyou Sharingan had always had the power to warp space and time. Rare and coveted, _kamui_ was used as a technique in war, but there was little experimentation regarding the threshold of its power.

It didn't come as such a surprise, then, that it could be stretched to unheard-of limits.

In the hands of a genius, _kamui_ was refined; to a man nearly blind, eye strain was of no consequence; and for an avenger with nothing left, the draining of a lethal amount of chakra meant nothing.

As the jutsu turned inward and time warped, Sasuke closed unseeing eyes and let himself be flung through the holes unraveling in the web of time.

* * *

Adjusting to twelve-year-old limbs was difficult. So was adapting to a world clear and bright, rather than blurred and rent.

Retired ninja who remembered his parents nodded respectfully as he passed.

_I'll betray you. _

The grocers at the local market waved cheerfully.

_I'll kill people you know. _

The girls by the sweet shop cooed and batted their lashes as he walked by.

_I'll be nothing like you want or expect._

Sasuke thought of ending it all. No last Uchiha to wreak havoc, and the world would thrive. With Sasuke dead, Itachi would likely take out Akatsuki on his own and die in the process -

_A happy ending._

Or he could… do it differently this time. Confront the village elders with evidence. Find Itachi and tell him he knew. Train here. Refuse Orochimaru. Fight the curse mark -

_Stand behind the Nanadaime Hokage when he was inaugurated._

Sasuke ignored the… _something_ he felt at that. After all these years, he still couldn't kill that tiny spark inside of him, the one that made his feet move when he didn't want them to and seemed to burn so much brighter when fed by the sun.

_Maybe Sasuke could do everything exactly the same -_

He passed a ramen stand; heard laughter drifting out from under the curtain, saw a flash of yellow out of the corner of his eye as a whiskered face slurped up noodles.

_- Or maybe he couldn't._

* * *

They were sitting together like schoolchildren – they _were _schoolchildren – in front of a teacher Sasuke hadn't seen in years.

Sasuke remembered how impressed he had been by Kakashi once; now, all he saw was the man he'd one day outgrow. There were no lessons to be learned here, he thought, if there ever had been. And then against his will he couldn't help but remember being thirteen years old and tied to a tree and Kakashi telling him, _"The power of the Chidori isn't meant to be used against friends or for revenge"_ - 

Everyone's eyes were on him, and he felt his mouth move.

"I don't have any goals."

There was a silence. Sakura was surprised, Naruto confused. Kakashi just nodded once. "Huh."

When Sasuke walked back to the Uchiha compound, there was someone waiting for him at the door of his house.

"So," said the Copy Ninja casually. "Who are you, and where is Uchiha Sasuke? You have ten seconds."

….Okay. Maybe there were still a few reasons to be impressed by Hatake Kakashi.

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	2. Policeman

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. :3

**A/N:** This was written on request for Ljiljana. 3

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**The One Where Sasuke's A Policeman  
**

* * *

There was noise everywhere. A cacophony of wails, it filled his head, ringing in his ears, drowning out ghost echoes of gunshots –  
Sirens.

Emergency vehicles tore into the parking lot, EMTs jumping out from the back as the red lights flashed - _Sasuke couldn't think_ and there was blood on his hands and everybody seemed to be shouting.

"-on Uchiha, he's gone, do you hear me? …Jesus fuck, kid, get up, he's already gone -"

Sasuke felt himself being tugged at. There was a hand at his arm, pulling him up and away from the body he sat clutching. There were congealed handprints of blood on the still chest of the man laying on the ground, and all Sasuke could do was move, limp and unseeing, out of the lot and into a patrol car.

Guiding him was Takada, one of the senior officers. Takada hated him, normally. They maintained a relationship of mutual scorn, carefully hidden behind a thin veneer of socially acceptable politeness.

But none of that mattered now.

Sasuke's brother was dead, and nothing much mattered at all.

* * *

It rained on the day of the funeral. Not earth-shaking, thunderstorm-type rain, or freezing sleet. It just _drizzled_. If Sasuke had been even remotely in the frame of mind to notice, he would have hated it. As it was, he just stood there, ignoring the water as it matted his hair in his eyes and soaked through to his skin.

It didn't hide the fact that he was crying for the first time he could remember since leaving home.

His family was there. His hard-faced father and crying mother, who he hadn't seen for years and barely spoke to on the phone. He remembered the split; the odd tension in the house, the arguments about career choices, and finally his brother packing and leaving. Fugaku had ordered him out. The son of the most powerful syndicate in Japan did not join the police force and remain within the family.

Things had been different, for a while; Sasuke had been the new prodigy in the house, as if Itachi no longer existed. But he loved his brother, and his father had yelled in his face and told him to choose.

He probably hadn't meant it. But Sasuke, then thirteen, had chosen. He'd packed his bags and slipped out his window, showing up on Itachi's doorstep the next morning.

As Itachi's coffin was lowered into the muddy earth, Sasuke stood apart from his parents and didn't look at them.

* * *

The thing was, Itachi should never have even been there. He was much higher up in NPA hierarchy than Sasuke was – probably reported to Naicha – and the chance of their ever meeting on the job was little to none.

But Sasuke had been investigating something – a particularly unsavory _bouryokudan_, too low-class to even be called a _yakuza._ They were suspected in over a dozen prostitution rings that bordered on human trafficking, but it seemed that they had a huge network of criminal contacts and one had ever been able to pin them down. But Sasuke was smart and unwavering and didn't get scared easily. He had risen fast through the ranks and was set to rise even further. The NPA had finally agreed to let him take the case.

Somehow, Itachi had heard. Somehow, Itachi had appeared out of nowhere, just as Sasuke walked into the middle of a shootout and the next thing he knew, his brother was dead and ambulances were arriving and there was blood on Sasuke's hands.

"Let me back in," Sasuke snarled, ripping whatever mission report the captain was reading out of his hands and flinging it to the floor. "I was _tracking_ them, I was _this fucking close_ –"

"I understand more than you think, Uchiha," the captain snapped at him. "But it's too personal. The answer is no."

Sasuke wanted to know who the hell else was going to take this on.

The answer was, no one. The assignment got tossed around, constantly blocked by red tape. Words like "warrants" and "evidence" and "risks" were bandied around. In the end, the file was left sitting in a filing cabinet collecting dust, Itachi was still dead, and the entire police force were a bunch of pussies.

They had lost one of their own – their _very best_ – and it scared them all shitless.  


* * *

  
They put him on paid leave. _Forced_ leave, for "reasons of a personal nature."

* * *

The bar was old and seedy, full of rough-looking characters who glanced sideways at Sasuke as he entered. Even dressed down, dressed casually, with ridiculous giant sunglasses and leather jacket and wild hair – he hadn't had the patience for it lately, and even his superiors seemed a bit afraid to mention it to him – he was too regulation for the place.

Sasuke barely noticed, and cared even less.

"Hatake Kakashi?" He asked, walking straight up to where a gray-haired man sat alone at the bar, slowly knocking back whiskeys.

The man looked at him, scarred face disinterested. "Huh?"

"You knew my brother," Sasuke said just loud enough for the other man to hear.

Hatake's eyebrows raised. "Oh? I do know a lot of brothers. He told you to come to me?"

No, but Sasuke had better hacking skills than anyone gave him credit for, and his brother's laptop had been unlocked. He didn't know how the two men ha known each other, but for Hatake to be on a list of Itachi's contacts, he must have trusted him. "I found you on my own. I want to ask you a few things."

"Ah. And so the good little cop risked being seen in a disreputable bar. I suppose it's just as well you're on leave, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke stared.

"It still doesn't explain," Hatake said before Sasuke could cut him off, "what you want and why you came to me."

"You were the first one ever on the case," Sasuke said. "You were dishonorably discharged when your partner was killed, but if my brother knew you, you have been good once."

"Ah. That was years ago; I'm out of the loop now." Hatake rubbed one hand across his face thoughtfully. "But if you want to find out about the _bouryokudan_, look up this name."

Dipping his finger in his drink, he casually drew a name in katakana on the surface of the bar.

"Who is that?"

"He's… a colorful character."

"Does he run the syndicate?"

"Look him up."

Sasuke took one last glance at the name, then turned on his heel and walked out. If that was the way it had to be, so be it. He would find Uzumaki Naruto.

* * *

The door didn't look much like it lead to the underground lair of a morally bankrupt criminal boss. It was scuffed and dirty and located – with the rest of the apartment complex – in a bad part of town, but it was also orange, with a cheerful handmade sign hanging just in the middle that said "Just Drop In!" There were smiley faces on the sign. Smiley faces and fishcake swirls.

There was no way of telling, though, and Sasuke's gun felt comforting against his back as he knocked.

Whatever Sasuke was expecting, it wasn't for the door to swing open to reveal a young man his own age. Tall, tan, cheeks scarred and blond hair bright and wild, he looked out at Sasuke with serious blue eyes. The sober expression somehow seemed unsuited to his face.

"C'mon," he said, stepping back. "Kakashi said you're a dumb jerk, but you're trustworthy."

Sasuke stared at him. Was Hatake could be working with him? Was Uzumaki a member of the syndicate? Maybe. But at the same time, he had never in his life seen a face so absent of guile.

He walked inside.

"This isn't gonna be good news," Uzumaki was telling him, closing the door. "I'm warning ya now, you can get out and not-"

"My brother is dead," Sasuke interrupted. "I want to know who it was and how to find them. I don't care what it takes."

The other man just looked unbearably sad for a moment, as if he was seeing something brilliant go to waste before his eyes. "Okay," he said, taking a seat at his tiny kitchen table and gesturing for Sasuke to do the same. "This is the story. You think your police station is incompetent," he said. "It's not. It's corrupt."

"Bullshit," Sasuke said involuntarily. "I've worked there for five years. Itachi did for ten. Neither of us saw anything like that."

"Sorry." Uzumaki sounded sincere. "Look." There was a packet of photographs on the table, and he slid it over to Sasuke.

Sasuke kept his right hand on his thigh, within easy reach of the firearm. With his left he slowly, unwillingly, reached out to open the folder.  
The images could have been photoshopped, but somehow, horribly, he knew they weren't. He recognized the men who had been encircling them when Itachi was shot. Their faces stood out quite visibly, next to the police Captain in his neatly pressed uniform.

"Kakashi told me a little," Naruto went on, looking away as if to give Sasuke privacy. "And I already know the rest. It started way back in Kakashi's day. He found out about it after his partner died and they tried to kill him for it, but he was too sneaky or something and got away. Public record says they discharged him. And just like him, you were getting too close."

Sasuke stared at the picture in his hand. The sounds Naruto was making weren't computing correctly in his head.

"You didn't walk into a random territory piss-off," Uzumaki continued. "It was an ambush."

A what?

"Itachi knew," Naruto said. "He found out where you were going and knew they'd set you up and ran to get you – I bet he left his laptop open too, right? And he called the ambulances, too, I dunno if you ever wondered about that –"

"How did he know? And how the hell did he know Kakashi? And what part do _you _have in this," Sasuke ended in a snarl.

"Kakashi's trying to bring them down through his contacts in the government. He used to be a black-ops guy. I'm just the word on the street – I live in shit, I know bad people, gangs think I'm just like them anyway, so I play the part."

"What about my brother?"

"Your brother was brilliant," Naruto said softly. "He was our man inside." Naruto ran a hand through his hair, leaving it wild and standing up even more than before. "But everything's gone to hell and we don't have a mole in the police now. Not any more."

Sasuke put the photo down and finally met Uzumaki's eyes. "Yes you do."

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	3. Pirates

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. :3

**A/N:** This was written on request for QuestofDreams. TOTAL CRACK. :D

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**The One Where There's Pirates  
**

* * *

A little known fact about Wave Country was that, despite never having had a ninja community, it was not entirely without its defenses. It had once had a navy of sorts; or at least groups of civilians with knowledge of the waves and fast enough ships to fend off any normal attacks.

As time went on and the nature of politics between the lands changed, Wave found itself less under the protection of its marauding fleets and more threatened by them.

It was not, surprisingly, the official office of Konohakagure that ended up calling for the meeting. That is what may have been expected, as immediately upon his inauguration, the Nanadaime Hokage had made a point of meeting with every representative or diplomat he could find, both local and foreign. Whether these meetings were formal or of the showing-up-at-their-door-at-midnight variety, he informed them that Things Were Different Now and The New Konoha No Longer Stands for Political Crap and Don't Think You Can Bully Me Or I'll Squash You With My Frog.

No, the man who called for an official meet was Captain Jackdavywilliam Sparrowjonesturner, the currant Pirate King. Old and grizzled, seeing his fortune dwindle as peace stabilized the world, he likely saw it as an opportunity to assert his authority. His kind had not had contact with ninja in recent historical memory – they stuck to terrorizing the outlying islands of the Land of Waves, which lay under dubious ownership and had little to no defensive forces. But upon his swearing in, the Nanadaime Hokage had officially decreed – i.e. decided and expected everyone to understand – that Land of Waves, while retaining complete governmental autonomy, was now under the protection of Konoha.

It was this move that prompted Captain Sparrowjonesturner to call for parley. On his own terms.

At _sea_.

The Hokage issued his acceptance – or at least mumbled 'mmkay' one day while slurping ramen, leaving Shizune to spend some minutes turning that statement into something remotely diplomatic. The Hokage's advisors, meanwhile, argued rigorously against the decision.

"I have to show them I'm willing to meet them in the middle," Naruto said in response, rubbing vaguely at the spot where Sakura had punched him to accentuate her argument. "I have to show them that I'm gonna be fair and I'm not trying to move into their territory. But I also gotta show them that nobody goes pillaging my friends." He paused. "Also, I'm going alone."

"You don't know how to steer a boat," Shikamaru pointed out calmly. "You don't know how to read sea charts, calculate longitude and latitude, or work rigging and sails."

"You would capsize ten feet from the coast," Sakura summarized, clearly trying to keep her calm. "Go with a team, or at least take a civilian sailor crew."

Sasuke didn't say anything, but his glare sent a resonating _You're stupid_ throughout the room.

"Nah," said Naruto. "I think I want to meet them one-on-one. That way if the fleet tries to attack me, they'll feel like they have an even chance."

"But you're not exactly the best at negotiation, Naruto," Sakura pointed out. "There is no possible way this idea could get any worse. It's a delicate operation. You need diplomacy and intimidation, but lack both."

Naruto thought about this. "You're right," he said. "I'll take Sasuke."

Shikamaru's forehead met his desk with an audible _clunk_.

* * *

"There is a single pirate fleet in the world," Sasuke said, frowning across the water from his spot in the rigging, "and you can't find it."

"Shut up," came a mulish mutter from behind an unfolded sea map. "I think this isn't where we're supposed to be."

"No shit." That, Sasuke thought, should have been fairly obvious by now. They had been given exact coordinates for the meeting, as well as the aide of maps and charts and compasses, but it was now the morning of the parley and they had, apparently, sailed in a big circle.

"I think," Naruto said, "the sun is in the wrong direction."

"Your head is in the wrong direction," Sasuke muttered, dropping down to the deck and snatching the map out of Naruto's hand.

"I think we took a wrong turn somewhere." Naruto made a squinty face at the helm, as if hoping it would give him directions.

"Move," Sasuke said finally. "I'll get us there."

"That's almost nice of you," Naruto said suspiciously. "When was the last time you cared about Konoha keeping face, huh?"

"I don't," Sasuke said, not looking at him. "But you do."

* * *

They made it on time.

What they found waiting for them was not a single ship, however, but a whole fleet. The three-decker was bristling with teeth, black skull-and-crossbones flag flying high in the wind. Stretching back and around them, a dozen frigates and sloops and men-o-war were at attention, men hanging off the sides and piled into the rigging for a clear view.

From the deck of his ship, the tricorn-hatted, eyepatched, parrot-on-shouldered Captain Sparrowjonesturner glared across the water at them. Sasuke had brought them right up alongside, but they were significantly lower in the water and completely exposed to the pirate ship's broadside.

"- Were kind of lost," the Great Toad Sage Jinchuuriki Nanadaime of Konohagakure was babbling. "The map was really hard to read – I think I was looking at it upside-down – and I still haven't figured out to adjust the boat-steering thing. So I made Sasuke do it."

The pirate looked unimpressed. "_This_," he said, "is the great ninja hope of the new age? The legendary prophecy? The _boy_ who thinks he has the right and the power to _lord it over us in our own waters_?"

_I can set you on fire with my eyeballs,_ said Sasuke's glare.

Naruto crossed his arms. "Don't make us go ninja on you."

There was raucous laughter from the triple-decker.

"I think," said the captain, "this is where you agree to cease all contact with the Land of Waves and never come into our territory again, or we will blow your ship to smithereens and show the world just how much the new Hokage and his 'protection' is worth."

There was a dramatic silence.

"You don't know a whole lot about ninja, do you."

"I know we can wipe that smirk off your face." The captain spat over the side of the ship.

"I think we gotta do this the old-fashioned way." Naruto sounded grumpy. "Show them what's wh- Sasuke?"

"You're slow." Sasuke didn't wait for a response, just disappeared in a swirl of crows.

"Bguh," the pirate captain spluttered.

"Right," said Sasuke, rematerializing with sword to the other man's neck before any of the sailors on deck could move an inch, "are we going to have to destroy you and your ship? Or are you going to stop preying on innocent vessels?"

Naruto dropped down from the rigging above, brought his fingers together in a seal, and sextupled himself. "Bwah," said the captain, as the Narutos proceeded to rip the canons free of the ship with their bare hands and throw them into the sea.

"Are you going to cease?" Sasuke said again, steel biting a little into to the captain's neck this time.

"What _are_ you," the man whispered in horror, eyes wide as the multiple Narutos high-fived each other, and his terrified crew dropped their weapons and cried for mercy.

"We are ninja," Sasuke whispered, leaning close and letting his Sharingan spin red just once. "We are the deadliest assassins to ever have lived. _We are invisible_. We're the shadows in the middle of the night, the noise you never hear, the devils who come out to kill."

"Yeah," shouted one of the Narutos from across the deck. "_Plus_ one of my best friends is a giant octopus, so next time you're pirating around, you better think twice, you got that buddy?"

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	4. War

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. :3

**A/N:** This was written on request for Sirona_gs. Angsty.

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**The One Where There's a Homecoming  
**

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Waiting.

For hours upon hours waiting in utter silence, while from outside came the shouts of panicked nin and the roaring of the elements as they clashed overhead.

He should have been out there with them, the other Konoha ninja, if for no other reason than because his presence on the battlefield was often the only thing holding back the tide. Without him, the attack would have turned into a slaughter long ago.

And so he fought alongside them. Because he cared just enough, now, to not want them all dead.

But not tonight. Despite the clamor, this was a lull in the battle; the enemy hadn't been driven back from the gates, but neither were they advancing.

Konoha was holding them. And Konoha would continue to do so. For their village, for their teammates, and for their Hokage.

They would win the battle, but there was no way that they could win the war.

So Sasuke had made a decision. Because he wasn't going to sit there and watch things crumble, wasn't going to see himself go down with them, wasn't going to fight in futility for yet another year.

The bedroom was cool and dark, and full of far too many memories. Not just the team pictures on the bookshelf, both old and new. It was full of other memories too, ones newer and more personal, like the rumpled sheets of the double bed where he sat. And the stacks of ramen.

The world could be ending, enemies tearing down the gates, and Naruto would still love ramen.

Naruto.

He had left weeks ago, and was due back tonight. An S-rank mission, nothing he couldn't handle, but he often seemed to forget how frail his own body was. And how slowly he now healed.

Naruto would be back soon. Tonight. He would have to be, because –

Because if he never came back, if he was dead or worse, Sasuke did not know what he would do.

Stop caring, it was likely. About Konoha, about the world, about doing what was right, and about himself.

"You promised," he said to the air. "You always brag that you keep your promises."

"Talking to yourself?"

Sasuke spun.

Naruto was standing by the doorway, looking exhausted and dirty and bloody and _alive,_ after which nothing else mattered. "They need you out there," Naruto continued. "The teams need a rest, what are you doing in h…"

His voice trailed off. He had seen the traveling pack.

"I'm leaving," Sasuke said.

"No," was all Naruto said. He said it like it was a fact, like it was something he knew, like if he said it surely enough it would be true.

"I don't know when I'm coming back."

"But we need you." Naruto stumbled in the door, kicking it shut behind him and sagging against it - he was so _tired_ – "I saw them out there, they're getting beaten down and we can't – tell me you're not just _running away_, do you even really _give_ a shit –"

Sasuke slammed them both into the door, fists wrapped tight in Naruto's shirt, mouths pressing together, teeth cutting into lips –  
"Do you trust me?" He pulled back just far enough to ask. "Do you trust me _at all_ anymore?"

"….Yeah." Naruto's voice was rough.

Sasuke stared at him hard before nodding once and stepping back. "Konoha can win this fight, but the war is going to crush it. It's going to crush Suna, and then there will be nothing left. It has nothing to do with the strength of the ninja here. You don't have enough allies. You can't survive forever as two again the world."

"So?"

"So I'm leaving. There are people I knew, people I… left behind. Give me enough time, and you'll have allies from the outside."

"Okay." Naruto's voice broke in the middle of the world.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "That's it?"

"Yeah. 'Cause I trust you. But you better come back, you hear me?"

"Worry about yourself."

It would be a long time – weeks, months, years – before they saw each other again. Sasuke concentrated on the feel, the taste, the warmth of Naruto's mouth, the life in his eyes, the determination in his jaw -

Then he was gone. Whirling away and out the door, a tall dark figure disappearing into the night and over the great wall completely unseen.

And in five months, a new Otokage would rise out of the ashes of Sound, more powerful than the last, bringing a hoard down on the forces besieging Konoha's walls and ending the war once and for all.

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	5. Childhood Haunt

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. :3

**A/N:** This was written on request for Ylmik_Wisty.

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**The One Where There's Nostalgia  
**

* * *

The well was old. It had been hidden in foliage, the first time Naruto found it. Not a well-kept shrine hung with pretty white paper, not a an innocent holy spring for weary travelers, it had the distinct feel of something purposely abandoned.

Maybe that was what had drawn them together.

The crumbling stones and the overgrown vines hid it like a dirty secret. The little rectangles of paper _ofuda_ pasted onto the trees weren't for tribute, but protection.

Shunned and allowed to wander alone in the wood, it hadn't taken long for Naruto to realize why. Carved into the stone were images like from a nightmare; stick figures with knobby limbs or painted red wraithlike forms with devil grins and evil eyes. In all of them, the nine tails were perfectly visible, as were the etchings of flame and destruction all around.

Years later, after Iruka-sensei and Mizuki and _everything_, Naruto had come back, and wondered. Maybe it had been a way of trying to assuage the beast in the first days of its attack. Maybe those who still remembered the old religions had tried to appease it with offerings. Naruto didn't know.

Now at twenty-three, it looked different than it once had.

It was a peaceful glen – leafy and green and surrounded by trees, lit by the golden sunlight streaming through the leaves into the dusty air. The air smelled sweet; there were little rings of white flowers around the bases of the surrounding trees.

The well sat silent.

With footsteps that seemed heavy in the silence of the forest, Naruto walked over to it and sat, fingers running mindlessly across the vines that tangled over the sides and hung down its interior. It seemed smaller to him now than it had as a child.

He'd used it as a wishing well, once. He had come there and missed Sasuke until it _hurt;_ had wished and wished because he was leaving with Jiraiya soon and the future was uncertain and people kept telling him that there was no hope –

"What are you doing here?"

- But as always, convincing Naruto to give up wasn't something they had been able to do.

"Hey Sasuke," Naruto said. He didn't turn around. "Just saying goodbye to this place. ….I don't think I need it any more."

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	6. Anger and PostTraumatic Stress

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. :3

**A/N:** This was written on request for Water_Soter.

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**The One Where There's PTSD  
**

* * *

It started in a training session. There had been nothing different about that day; Taijutsu practice was always casual, the least draining of the ninja disciplines. It was slightly less laid-back than normal, maybe, with Lee as his sparring partner and Gai cheering with frightening enthusiasm from the sidelines – but still.

It had happened in an instant. Naruto lost concentration for a moment – or Lee had moved faster than usual, he wasn't sure which – and Lee's fist rode over his guard and tapped him on the chest.

The world blanked for a moment, and the next thing Naruto knew, Lee was flying backward and through a tree.

He was fine, of course. Lee had been though much worse and come up swinging – in fact, both he and Gai were more worried about Naruto, who had never in anyone's memory reacted with such panic to a harmless tap.

Naruto didn't understand it himself, and neither did Tsunade, even after an hour of poking and prodding at him at Sakura's insistence.

A vague inkling of the underlying problem finally came a week later, when Naruto was practicing on a straw dummy and found himself standing with his fist through its chest.

He should have guessed, really.

In the end, all things came down to Sasuke.

* * *

"Why do you think it's bothering you now?" Kakashi asked. The two of them were seated at a yakisoba stand, for the sole reason that Kakashi had promised to pay if Naruto told him what was on his mind. Iruka, Kakashi had hastened to explain, was worried. "Forgive me for pointing it out, but you're not usually the type to internalize."

Naruto shrugged, poking at his noodles and trying to think of a way to explain his thoughts. How was he supposed to do that, he wondered, when he didn't even know them himself.

"Particularly not with Sasuke," Kakashi continued, executing some complicated maneuver that make a spoonful of soup disappear beneath his mask. "Normally you punch one another a couple of times and everyone's happy."

"Everything's good now," Naruto tried. "Everything's going great, and Konoha's at peace –"

"So you needed a reason to be miserable?"

"-So I finally have the _time_ to remember the bad things. I dunno."

"Did you ever really forgive him for leaving?" Kakashi asked.

"I wasn't as important," Naruto mumbled into his chopsticks. "It didn't matter."

"I think it did," Kakashi said, setting his empty bowl down on the counter. "And I think you need to deal with that."

* * *

Stupid, stupid Sasuke. It seemed like everything in Naruto's life was cursed to revolve around him – all his anger and attachment and apparent first brush with PTSD.

As far as he saw it, Naruto thought, hands stuffed deep in his pockets as he strolled down the road, he had two options. One, he could ignore it. Push it away, try to move on.

Or two, he could go kick down Sasuke's door and yell at him.

It wasn't a very hard decision.  


* * *

  
"Oi," Naruto said, blinking through the settling sawdust from his place on the landing. He'd perhaps taken the "kicking the door down" part of his plan a little too literally.

Sasuke, seated at his kitchen table with a mission scroll spread out before him and a pen in one hand, just blinked at him, glanced at the wreckage that was once his front door, and looked away. "What is it this time?"

Naruto marched up to him, ripped the paper out of his hands and slammed his palms down on the table.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "What are you pl-"

"I'M MAD," Naruto yelled. "Really, really mad at you, okay, and I never told you this before because I know you didn't give a shit and I w- I _am_ scared that if I bring it up now, you still won't. But-"

"Nar-"

"Shut up, I'm talking." At some point, Naruto's fists had become wrapped in Sasuke's shirt, yanking them close. "You punched me through the chest when we were twelve," he said. "You tried to kill me, and then you left and you didn't give a shit and it _fucking hurt_."

Sasuke looked at him impassively.

"So – so I needed to say that," Naruto ended lamely. "I don't care about the injury, I never did. But you were trying to –"

"We were both trying to kill each other," Sasuke interrupted. "You were going to break every bone in my body and drag me home, remember? You threw me into a cliff. I threw Chidori at you but you threw Rasengan at me. Don't act as if it was one-sided."

"You stuck your hand through my ribs, and don't gimme any sort of bullshit about how '_you knew I'd be okay'_. I'm just surprised you didn't finish me off while I was unconscious." He didn't mean the words, didn't really think them, but they slipped out before he could stop them.

Sasuke's face closed off and his eyes hardened. "I thought about it," he said, and Naruto felt himself flinch. "I decided it wasn't worth it."

"Some friend," Naruto whispered, hoping the words would hurt Sasuke as much as they hurt him.

"I didn't _want _friends, Naruto. I didn't want any because I knew anyone that I gave a _shit _about," and here Sasuke moved for the first time and shoved Naruto away hard, "I would have to kill."

And Naruto had known that, really. Somewhere deep inside, he'd known, but still –

"But I'm sorry."

Naruto gaped.

"For what it's worth," Sasuke continued the barest of shrugs. "If we had to do it all over again I probably wouldn't do it any different. But I hadn't wanted to do that, and I'm sorry."

"Oh." Naruto's mouth worked, but he found himself speechless. "Oh, okay."

And it was. Because Sasuke was not above deceit, but neither was he one to lie to spare others' feelings.

"Sorry about your door," Naruto offered finally.

Sasuke snorted. "You do it every other month. Stay for dinner?"

Naruto rubbed one hand thoughtfully over his chest. It didn't hurt anymore. "Sure."

* * *

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	7. American Idol

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. :3

**A/N:** Written for Acern. Slightly cracky. Links to each song are embedded in the story on my LJ.

* * *

**They One Where They're on American Idol.  
**

* * *

The holding room was packed. There was a buzz in the air – something like anticipation and hope and nervous tension all rolled into one, as bright young hopefulls and wide-eyed kids chattered away, and calm professionals touched up their makeup. There were people spilling out of the chairs, seated on the floor, leaning on the walls, pacing the room – and gradually, in starts and spurts, the crowd would shift as people cycled in and out.

Sasuke hated it. The way these people acted as if their future, their very existence, depended on these few precious seconds. The wide-eyed hope that was sure to get crushed in all but a precious few of them.

In fact, the strong hand on his arm was the only thing that stopped him from getting up and walking right out again.

Even compared to the others, the look on Naruto's face was downright idiotic; eyes shining, mouth gaping open in a dopey grin, he dragged Sasuke through the crowd and to the registration table. One clothed in black and visibly unenthusiastic, the other in eyewatering orange and a grin that threatened to split his face, the two of them drew more than a couple looks. Naruto glared right back. Sasuke ignored them.

"They won't be laughing when I win," Naruto said decidedly, affixing his audition number to his chest with schoolboy enthusiasm. "'Sides, this part'll be over before we know it."

They waited nine hours.

Naruto interacted with everyone – offering sincere encouragement to the nervous, sharing food, and chattering away like a monkey until he was called.

"I'll be back with that ticket," Naruto said with a wide grin and nervous eyes, and then he was gone, disappeared behind the wooden doors.

Sasuke felt a slight twinge in his heart, and cursed himself. He wasn't supposed to care so much. Not about anything in life, let alone something as inane as this. But Naruto cared – he cared more than he could say – and somehow, stupidly, that made Sasuke want it too.

And so Sasuke waited, standing next to the small circle of friends Naruto had picked up in their short time of being there. They eyed him nervously, and he ignored them. He was trying to listen.

Faintly – very, very faintly – he could hear through the door, the opening lines of 'Gone Forever.' Naruto's voice sounded the way it always did – loud and rough and bursting with life, like he was ripping his heart out and throwing it down on the stage.

"This is my chance," he could hear Naruto say. He heard the judges ask him about his past. Raised in a slum, in an over-packed orphanage – he had enough of a sob story for the entire room, and though it would have seemed gratuitous exploitation in anything else, he knew Naruto would speak with enough sincerity to convince anyone.

When Naruto exited the room at last, eyes shining with unashamed tears and golden ticket clutched in his fist, Sasuke felt something in him loosen.

"They gave you a pity ticket, then?" He asked.

"Shut up, jerk." Naruto was beaming. "It's your turn."

'Rooftops' wasn't a song that was meant to be sung in a small room, or even to be sung without backup from guitars. It was a scream anthem, not an audition song. Sasuke didn't care. He knew he could sing, and his voice wasn't too dissimilar to the original artist's. He had needed something that, in Naruto's words, he cared about enough to sing, and the lyrics maybe meant just enough for him to open up to them.

He hasn't been in a position like this for a long time – where he had to defer to others, to learn from them, and to act like their opinions actually mattered to him - and he could tell the judges didn't like his attitude.

But they put him through, because his is the best voice they've heard in any city.

"I'm doing this for him," Sasuke tells the camera afterward. "Because he needs it, and he wouldn't do it without me."

As Naruto runs ahead, whooping and jumping, Sasuke doesn't explain that it wasn't because Naruto didn't have the courage to audition himself. It was that he refused to make his own life better unless he could drag Sasuke to the top with him.  


* * *

  
"You," said Simon on the first day of Hollywood week, "don't actually want to be here. You have the best voice in the competition, but you don't care. Why should we put you through, before a hundred other people who actually want it?"

Sasuke barely had an answer for him. "Because singing is the only thing I have left," he finally said, hand clutched tightly around the microphone.

It had been a long time since Sasuke'd had to censor himself, to stay polite, to be deferential. His default modes were apathetic and cocky. He tried not to be aloof to the judges and smirk at his competition and ignore the camera, but it was hard. He tried to direct his annoyed looks toward the wall. He was fairly sure that on the first day, he had glared in the wrong direction made Ryan Seacrest cry.

But for the first time in his life, Naruto's story brought him sympathy, not derision. Growing up in one of the most violent, gang-ridden neighborhoods in the country, Naruto was open about everything, telling them about how he left when he was thirteen and was rejected everywhere he went.

"I'm gonna win," he said, stating it like it was a fact. Like it had already happened. "I don't care what they say. I'm never gonna stop."  
He worked harder than anyone, shoving his raw talent in the judges' faces when they wouldn't acknowledge it.

He sang a stripped-down Nickelback song for his last solo, raw and emotional and fearless, leaving everything open on the stage for the audience to see.

When they let him through to the Top 36, he cried unashamed, loud, snotty tears into Paula's shoulder.

The cameras are off for Sasuke's final interview. He tried to ignore the new security members standing by.

They had looked into his record, and the fact that they couldn't get into it had everyone freaking.

"You're listed as a regestered high-level offender," Simon told him dead-on, "but your record is locked and we can't even see what it was for. You are not the kind of person we want in this competition, unless you can give us a valid reason."

"And tell us where you were," Kara added.

Sasuke snorted. "I was in jail."

"Juvie?"

"No."

It took a lot, for a juvenile to get sent to a regular prison.

They stare at him, and he can see it there, in their eyes. They don't trust him. And they shouldn't – he knows that. He thought about telling them the whole thing – actually telling them about Itachi, and how messed up Sasuke had been, and what he had done and who he had hurt in the process – but he didn't care enough. And in the end, it was none of their damn business.

He was up out of the seat and walking back down the corrodor when there was a shout of "WAIT!" and Paula was running down the hallway after him, unsteady in her heels and tears in her eyes, clutching his arm and telling him, "We're going to give you another chance. You're beautiful and your voice is beautiful and everyone makes mistakes, Sasuke. We're honored to have you on our show."

And Sasuke had no idea why, but he was actually glad. As if he'd actually started to want this.

* * *

It didn't take long for the news to get out. Fans came in all levels of fanaticism, and looking up public records didn't take long. What they'd expected to find, Sasuke had no idea, but what they found was a locked file with only high-level government clearance.

In an attempt to calm the growing media storm, Idol publicists tried to unshoulder the blame by stating the facts: There were technically no rules against admitting convicts and felons to the competition, background checks were not mandatory, and, most importantly, they had no idea why Sasuke's record was locked, or who had locked it.

Interviews that week were interesting. Reporters screamed at him from all sides, asking why his record was locked to the public. He answered with a glare and "Because it is."

Parents were convinced he was a shady character; murderer, thief, felon, or addict. Teens were convinced he was a secret agent – perhaps even in the competition undercover, with any luck on a mission to get into Uzumaki Naruto's pants.

Surety of his Jason Bourne-like past aside, it was a media shitstorm. He made the headlines of credible newspapers and tabloids alike. On television, Bill O'Reilly talked about the producers sending him home, Glenn Beck cried and played Nazi footage, and Jon Stewart made funny faces.

In the end, no one brought up the option of Sasuke leaving in an official capacity.

Just to make it clear Sasuke was not allowed to take matters into his own hands, Naruto marched into Sasuke's room that night, dragged his empty suitcase from the closet, and threw it out the window.  


* * *

  
Ratings soared. They were at the highest they had been since Season 8; Sasuke attracted more people than he frightened, or did enough of both that people were soon to busy swooning to remember that he could possibly Be A Bad Person. Women – and men – fainted in the isles.

Pitch perfect and sexy, the girls on the panel called him, which was true. Boring, said Simon after what seemed like a moment of gathering his nerves, which was true too. He wanted emotion, and didn't care if it was anger.

Anger, Sasuke thought. He could do that. The problem was that he could do it too well. When he was young, 'snarly grumpy jerk' came to him without effort; now, he wasn't sure what level of psychotic behavior would come pouring out.

He chose 'Make A Move' by the Lostprophets – revisiting the band might get him in trouble, but he didn't care – and let all the frustration and impatience and uselessness and screaming rage he's ever felt pour out onto the stage.

As the last strains died away, the auditorium erupted.

Naruto fought his way up from the Bottom Three, winning people over with his unaffected emotion and raw honesty, and had strangers penning him inspirational ballads for reasons they barely knew themselves. He was fearless, the judges said. Now his singing just had to get up to par. They tried to get him to sing Owl City. The next week, he came out and sang 'Headstrong.'

* * *

Things changed with their next mentor. Sasuke took one glance at him, with his ridiculous hair and aura that screamed 'superstar,' and wrote him off.

Then Sasuke found out the hard way that the other man was not remotely afraid to call Sasuke on his bullshit, and had a better singing voice by a mile.

"All I see is apathy," Sasuke was told in a matter-of-fact tone. "You've got an amazing voice, but all you're showing is that you're cocky, and you don't care about singing. You've got to pull something out of you – whether it's anger or sadness or whatever – and put it on stage. There's a real you in there somewhere. Stop hiding him."

Sasuke broke out the piano that week, and poured it all into a song. 'My Medea' should have been entirely unsuited to his voice, but it wasn't. When it was done, he opened his eyes. The entire auditorium was silent. Simon Cowell's mouth was gaping, and Randy appeared to be crying.  
There was a wetness on Sasuke's face that he didn't recognize, and for the first time, he remembered his parents watching his piano recitals at age 8, and wondered if things had been different, if they would have been in the audience now.

* * *

Naruto's experience with the mentor had been much different – he had been commended on his bravery, given encouragement, and encouraged to 'focus more on his vocals.' It transformed him in one night from the punky kid with the obvious inexperience and painful optimism. He stopped yelling back at the judges, and just stared at them with his scrunchy face and took in the constructive criticism.

Hip-hop/Rap Week was the hardest. Even harder was that they were not allowed to rearrange their songs, as if the judges were afraid someone would pull a Kris Allen and be better than they wanted him to be.

Naruto donned sunglasses and ripped into 'Sexyback,' as Sasuke resisted the urge to beat his head against the wall backstage.

Then it was Sasuke's turn, and he took the term 'finding loopholes' to a new level as he ripped into what had been Naruto's second choice – a Fort Minor song - acapella.

Naruto nearly died laughing.

* * *

For international week, Sasuke sang in Japanese, and for Lady Gaga Week, Naruto did something ridiculous to 'Paparazzi' and brought the house down. Neither of them were in the bottom three again.

* * *

Standing there in the finale was odd. Sasuke's expectations had never reached this far. Naruto's, it seemed, had had no limits.

The last strains of their duet had finally faded away. The audience was on edge, and there was a weight in the air, as if everything was about to change. As if it was their lives that depended on the name written on the little card in Ryan's hand.

Sasuke knew it was Naruto's. He knew, and knew that was the way it was meant to be.

Something had happened, over the course of the competition. Something ridiculous was in the music – _their_ music – in performing together, in the stage, in the lights and the audience and the fact that this was Naruto's destiny and Sasuke finally actually gave a fuck about it.

It was like they had both dragged themselves out of the dark.

As they waited, Ryan asked them who they thought would win.

"Doesn't matter," Naruto answered for both of them. "We're both gonna rock it."

* * *

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	8. Glam

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. :3

**A/N:** For Akalillyn, who wanted glam and eyeliner.

* * *

**The One Where There's Glam**

* * *

Naruto sometimes thought he came from a different planet than Sasuke Uchiha.

Uchiha struck him as a teacher's pet type, really. Annoyingly talented as well as stupidly good-looking, he was fawned over by teachers for his perfect grades, powerful family name and raw intelligence.

Someone like him would normally have been stalked by girls and coveted by the sports teams, holier-than-thou attitude taken as charisma rather than arrogance.

But Uchiha wasn't _normal_. Maybe the way he dressed had something to do with it – for a guy who exuded such anal-retentive, no-nonsense, straight-laced vibes, the guy wore a heck of a lot of eyeliner, black and smudged, as if he had drawn it on one day and never taken it off again. People saw the piercings and black nail polish, the ripped clothes and peeling converse and angry spiked hair, and cast their judgment.

It made him different. More dangerous, and more out of the box.

Sitting at his own lunch table and surrounded by friends, Naruto would watch Uchiha eating by himself and feel confused. He couldn't understand how someone could live like that – treated as something odd, something to be revered from afar but half feared and never spoken to. He didn't understand how Sasuke could not jump up and down, scream for attention, shove his existence in everyone's faces and force them to acknowledge him.

It was stupid, he thought.

The next day, Naruto Uzumaki came to school with turquoise glitter stripes on his cheeks.

It was, he thought as he walked over to where Uchiha sat in the corner, really dumb-looking. And girly. But whatever.

Uchiha, who had been holding a study book open with one hand and raising an onigiri to his mouth with the other, looked up and dropped his food in his lap.

"What the fuck," he said.

"Hi," said Naruto, throwing himself and his food tray down next to the other boy's and tucking into his ramen. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki. Nice to meet ya."

Uchiha stared.

"I was just thinking," Naruto said, breaking his chopsticks apart, "that you're sort of a jerk and I'm a lot cooler than you, but we should try out glitter and stuff. Together."

"….Is that some sort of twisted euphemism?"

Naruto leered. "Do you want it to be?"

* * *

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	9. Kids

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. :3

**A/N:** Implied **HETERO**SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS. There are a sad amount of fics that are set in the future, where the main characters have children and, having passed the age of 30, are suddenly useless and old. As if the Sannin, Madara, and the Sandaime did not exist, or something. D: I wrote this to... rectify that?

* * *

**The One Where There's Kids  
**

* * *

_"ANBU, come in."_ The call came over the crackly communication line, urgent and barely audible.

"Naruto."

"_This is Badass Wonder calling ANBU Butthead. Repeat, ANBU, come in._"

"Naruto!"

"_Repeat, this is Badass Won-"_

Sasuke smacked Naruto over the head. "I'm right here, you moron."

"Aww, c'mon," Naruto groaned, taking the communicator off his ear and slumping to the ground. "This is the first time we've been out of the village in ages."

"We're tracking an S-Class nin across a sunny, flat grassland and you're wearing _an orange Hokage hat_. We don't need any more reasons to get noticed."

Naruto stuck his tongue out. "Y'know, I'd say getting old is making you stuffy, except you've always been like this."

Sasuke cast him a scornful glance, then went back to scanning their surroundings. "Akito said something like that before we left. He implied I was having joint problems, and then said that since he's a chuunin now he should be taking missions for me."

Naruto fell back into the grasses that surrounded them, laughing uproariously.

Sasuke kicked him, eyes locked onto a point on the horizon. "Quiet. They're here."

* * *

As it turned out, it hadn't been one S-Rank missing nin; it had been two, and a group of their lackeys. They were young, brilliantly twisted, and extremely dangerous.

After they'd been beaten, Sasuke and Naruto tied the unconscious bodies together and locked them in chakra-leeching handcuffs before slumping back to rest against them. Sasuke began tending to a shallow wound on his arm.

"Not poisoned, is it?" Naruto eyed the cut.

"No."

"Akito's gonna see it and say it proves him right," Naruto grinned.

"Akito is very bright," Sasuke said. He wasn't what would be called a warm parent, but he never pretended he didn't care about his son, and he never lied to him. He'd seen the damage that could do. "He's at the top of his class. I could beat him with my eyes shut."

Naruto snickered. "Overconfident little snot. Wonder where he gets _that _from."

"Your bad influence."

"Oi, at least he's better than we were at that age..."

"Better than you were, maybe," Sasuke said, the tiniest of smirks playing around his lips.

"See, I'd take offense at that, but I know you're just jealous." Naruto flopped back against the soft ground, one hand behind his head, the other picking absentmindedly at the tall tufts of grass. "Have you ever thought about it, though? I mean, that we might go out on a mission some day and just… not make it back?"

Sasuke finished with the wrapping and lay down beside Naruto. The sky seemed amazingly blue. "I wouldn't do that to him. I wouldn't leave him to grow up alone in that village." He could feel Naruto's discontented gaze – it was a subject they never had, and likely never would, agree on – but ignored it. "Besides, no one has beaten me in a very long time."

"I kicked your ass yester-"

"No one with a brain has beaten me in a very long time."

Naruto just grinned. "Well, yeah, but. I dunno. I mean, I guess I never though about it, you know? Getting _old_. I mean, we're older than Kakashi-sensei was when we first met him, but I don't feel any different than I did ten years ago."

"We're only thirty-seven, Naruto. How old was Sarutobi?"

"Dunno. A thousand, or something. But it's like everyone younger than us suddenly thinks we're about to fall apart."

"Obviously not, unless that's a watermelon in your wife's stomach."

"One more for the family," said Naruto happily.

"You don't have a family. You have a _brood_."

"….You're just jealous that I get it on more than you."

Sasuke smacked him on the head again.

* * *

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	10. Iconology

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. :3

**A/N:** For Greenlight6. Utterly ridiculous. Ridiculously melodramatic. Melodramatically metaphorical.

* * *

**The One Where There's Iconology**

* * *

There was a cucumber on Sasuke's doorstep.

Of course, 'doorstep' was a slightly generous term. Packed dirt and uneven stepping stones made up the sad little house's stoop, adequate for whatever poor farmer had lived there before the war, but a far cry from the gleaming wood upon which Sasuke had sat and polished his weapons as a boy.

It made a neat metaphor about how far he had fallen.

_Not important_, he reminded himself. He had to do that a lot – remind his mind not to wander.

Bare feet scuffed against the floor as he edged back from the entrance. Spring rain was pounding down outside, turning the earth into mud and beading water in his hair as he leaned out the door.

The cucumber, though.

It should have been unusual. True, it was the only spot of color and vegetation for a mile around – the devastation had hit this area hard, and the war had not left much standing. Not much alive, either.

Upon arrival Sasuke had had to bury the house's previous owner, still laying where he had fallen in flight from a ninja bioweapon.

Whether it was his side who had caused the mass civilian death or not, Sasuke wasn't sure. He wasn't even sure what he meant by 'his' side.

But the cucumber. That, at least, Sasuke understood perfectly well.

The occurrences had been following him since he hit the border of Kusa, turning up at every abandoned cabin, dilapidated shack and dirt-cheap inn he passed through.

See, graffiti or rotten fruit – that he had expected. People were vicious when they were afraid. When they didn't understand. The villages were only just beginning to flourish again, no longer hurriedly rebuilt shanty-towns. Even the Kage had been embarrassingly enthusiastic with the projects, happily tending the gardens day and night.

But fresh-picked vegetables laid out for him to find? 'Confused' had been the least of it, especially when Sasuke found out who they were from.

He blinked. He'd gotten cold, standing there and thinking. Wet air billowed past him and into the house; his fingers were chilled on the door frame by now, a trickle of water running down his jaw.

Splashes of brown mud speckled the green garden vegetable sitting on the ground.

And then another landed beside it with a _plonk_, looking bright and annoyingly cheerful amidst the monochrome of the rest of the world.

Well, Sasuke was used to dealing with annoyingly cheerful.

"Naruto!" Sasuke yelled, then crossed his arms and waited.

There was no answer, just a vague gurgle of surprise from the direction of the roof.

Sasuke tried to suppress the muscle tick in his forehead. "_Naruto."_

There was a guilty silence. Impatient, Sasuke stepped barefoot into the rain and jumped to the roof, landing on the rotting straw just in front of – in front of -

Naruto was sitting on his traveling pack, cross-legged beneath a large blue umbrella, satchel of garden vegetables in one hand, chopsticks and cup of ramen in the other.

"Er," he said, and made an expression like a guilty fish.

"What," Sasuke said, "the fuck."

"….I can explain?"

Sasuke snorted, flicking wet hair out of his eyes. "Three months, you brain-dead _absurdity._"

Naruto spluttered.

"Three months of following me, sending these _things_ like some kind of obscene calling card –"

"I was _not_ – that wasn't – you LEFT!" And suddenly Naruto was standing, fists clenched, ignoring the umbrella as it tumbled away and ramen as it splashed at his feet. Rain dampened the tips of his stupidly blond hair.

"So?"

"So you LEFT and _what was I supposed to do, just let you go or something, _you gigantic fucking prick –"

"We agreed," Sasuke said, "on one year. I did my time."

"Everything was fine, everything was _awesome_ and you were _home in Konoha_ and then you had to go and ruin it like you always do!" Naruto threw a carrot at his head.

"Funny," Sasuke snapped finally, all his wrath, all his carefully-suppressed rage unraveling slowly inside him. "given what we'd talked about just before I left –"

"I _gave_ you my answer," Naruto yelled. "I _gave_ it, not like I should have _had _to, I only chased after you for _four fucking years_ after you tried to _kill me and everyone else_."

There was a blur, and then Sasuke was in his face, breathing shallow, expression perfectly calm. "I asked," he said quietly, "for you to tell me what I meant to you. _How much_ I meant to you. A childhood companion, a quest, a promise to a girl, some stupid idea of redemption – whatever, I just wanted to understand. And you gave me," he grabbed the shoulder of Naruto's jacket with one hand, "a," landed a fist hard against the side of his ribs, "_garden. Vegetable_." And he kicked him in the stomach.

They tumbled off the side of the roof, Naruto coughing and gasping, landing flat on his back in the mud.

Sasuke stood over him. "Why you decided to then chase me through three different countries is something I'm sure only a mind as convoluted as yours can fathom."

"Buy it wasn't just any vegetable, Sasuke." Naruto wasn't even attempting to get up; he just lay there, getting dirtier.

Good, Sasuke thought. Now maybe he'd finally be just as messed up as the rest of the world, finally stop being so… himself.

"It was a zucchini," Naruto continued. "Sakura said they'd be good, with the soil – it was the first plant, the very first one, from the new garden."

Sasuke said nothing.

"The garden, you idiot," Naruto repeated louder, slamming one fist into the earth beside him. "The first successful one after the destruction in Konoha, the first new life and healing and progress. You asked me what you meant to me, Sasuke, and I gave you the only thing I could think of! Konoha, my _home_, the place I grew up in and swore to protect and rebuilt and everything I treasure, _everyone I love_, living and thriving." Naruto sniffled loudly, wiping a muddy hand across his nose. "You stupid jerkface, always running away and making everything harder and never grateful for anything, ever – _you mean more than Konoha to me, don't you get it_?"

There was a silence.

The rain had tapered off, while they'd been yelling. It looked like the storm clouds were almost ready to dissipate.

"So just to be clear," Sasuke said with a frown, "it wasn't some attempt at phallic symbolism?"

"It. Guh. Wha?"

That was a no, then. "Never," Sasuke said, looking away so he could wipe the rain off his face, "try acting in metaphor again."

Naruto harrumphed. "Never take off like that again and maybe you got a deal."

"I'm crazy. You realize that, right? Your precious grandmother stared at me whenever I was in the room, trying to figure out when I'd snap."

"I know," Naruto mumbled. He was looking away, out towards the horizon. Back to Konoha. "Don't care. You're nuts, I'm nuts. We're all nuts, you jerk. But we carry each other, remember?"

Sasuke nodded just a fraction, eyes still trained on the sky.

The sun was starting to shine.

* * *

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	11. Running

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. :3

**A/N:** For Ljiljana.

* * *

**The One Where They Run  
**

* * *

They were best friends, sort of.

At least in the sense that Naruto was independent of the fawning masses, and Sasuke had never shown interest in stuffing Naruto's locker full of rotten fruit.

Odd standards, maybe, that they weren't sure they understood themselves.

Lunch bell ringing, crowded classrooms spilling out into the hallways, the day was not complete without at least one infuriated scream of _'Sasukeeeeeee,'_ as the boys grappled on the floor, the name occasionally supplemented by '_douche_' and '_arrogant bastard'_ and _'hey jerkoff I'm talking to you.'_ The student body would pile around to watch the aloof class president lose his famous cool as the two squabbled like schoolchildren, yelling, "You're thicker than a _farm animal,_" and "That's what your mom –" and "I'll mom your _face_."

The teachers worried, even if it was more for Sasuke's spotless school record than Naruto's wellbeing.

They didn't realize that a change in the monotony was welcomed, however annoying it seemed at first; that Naruto actually made Sasuke work for once, and never compared him to his brother or tried to use him for a favor.

They would never understand how active rivalry was so much better than being ignored, how Sasuke never closed his eyes in silent revulsion and turned away to pretend the kid with the uncombed hair and dirty face and old clothes didn't exist.

Schools for the privaliged wasn't the place for a scholarship kid. It was as if a rodent had got in, and perhaps if everyone ignored it, it would leave.

The first time they meet it's at the docks. Sasuke was walking past – he wasn't supposed to be out on his own but he was seven now, a big boy, and the lake was close to home anyway – and Naruto was sitting there, bare feet trailing on the water, face peering out of the collar of his grubby orange track suit.

It was early noon and bright and the park was crowded around them, and Sasuke couldn't help but think, _It was different last time._

The next time they saw each other it would be on the field, first gym class of the year and trouble already brewing.

_'Go sit down',_ Sasuke had said, looking down his nose in an attempt to imitate his big brother. It just made him look like he had stomach cramps, but he didn't notice, too busy disapproving of the kid far at the back of the line just coming into his second lap when everyone else had finished their third. '_You're too slow, and you should give up, because you're slowing everyone down.'_

_'Oh yeah_?' The stupid little boy - with his stupid hair and his stupid blue eyes and his stupid weird cheeks - waved a grubby and exhausted arm. _I'll finish, I'll _show _you._

He did.

* * *

Time passed.

They're twelve when there's an explosion in the chem lab, and Sasuke is diving in front of Naruto before he can process or understand his own actions. When he woke his lungs hurt and there was rubble everywhere, and he could feel someone clutching at him from above.

'_Don't cry, Sakura_,' he said impatiently, until he opened his eyes and found the EMTs staring down at him and remembered that he didn't know anyone by that name.

* * *

At thirteen Sasuke was older, fitter, already the captain of the running team and junior high class president both, and yet he was still watching the stupid boy with his stupid brain come straggling in behind, in races, in classes, in testing, in everything.

_'Don't care. I'll get better, I'll show you all.'_

He did. Slowly, it seemed at first, and then faster, until Sasuke was feeling the wind in his face and tarmac under his feet and hearing the shout, all the time, always:

'_I'm chasing you, Sasuke, and I'm gonna catch you because I'm gonna never, ever give up.'_

The phrase haunts him for the better part of three years, because it's like he's heard it before in a dream.

Around the time he finally stops dwelling on it, Naruto catches up to him. Like the years had been speeding by without Sasuke's notice, all of a sudden Naruto was there at his elbow, fit and easily outpacing everyone, stupid blue eyes sparkling.

He still sucked at math though, Sasuke comforted himself. And science. And writing. And English.

As the years went on, Sasuke wouldn't even look at anyone else on the field, because the both knew Naruto was the only one who could keep up with him.

By the time they were old enough to drive, the atheltics field was their domain and the running track was their battleground.

And after school well. If they hung out occasionally, it didn't make them any less enemies.

* * *

"Hurry up, Sasuke." Naruto is waiting, impatient and loud, at the front entrance of the school. He's wearing the stupid orange Kamikaze coat again, and the same grubby, holey sneakers as always. "Are we going for ramen or not?"

They took Sasuke's car, mostly because Naruto didn't have one. He still walked to school every day.

Sometimes they met up a few blocks over and walked the rest of the way together, sniping and arguing and talking nonsense until the school doors came into view.

"Do you ever feel," Naruto said once, "like things should have been different?"

_Born an only child. Born first. Born, maybe, more talented. "_It's stupid to wish for things that can't be changed," Sasuke replied, but Naruto shook his head.

"No, like – like things were meant to be different, like we took a wrong turn somewhere and now it's all – all just – wrong, 'cause we gotta do it over 'cause we fucked up."

Sasuke looked away. "You're not making any sense."

"Nothing's _right_, Sasuke. I just… feel like it wasn't supposed to be like this. Don't you feel it?"

And suddenly Sasuke was hearing Naruto's voice older, more tired, more angry, and he wasn't hearing it at all but remembering –

"No," he said.

It was stupid, anyway. They were just kids, just in school. What life-altering decisions had they made yet?

None. None at all.

* * *

Their school is famous for its relay marathons. They're not very serious, not televised like the college races that Waseda have been stealing, but they're big.

And if Sasuke wanted the slightest chance in hell to choose his own path in life, the slightest chance to be more than one more Uchiha in a line of hundreds, he had to win, and he had to be _brilliant_.

He chose Naruto as his relay partner.

"Someday, we'll actually get to compete," Naruto was saying, his usual pre-game babble as they warmed up on the track together. They could hear the crowd outside; parents, students, from both their school and all their challengers. "We make a great team and all, but one of these days, I'm gonna hand you your ass in front of twice this many people."

"Someday," Sasuke agreed, hearing inside his own head, _I want to beat you, too._ And then he shook his head violently, because he'd thought those imaginary memories were gone for good and he can't afford this, not now, not when everything is so within reach.

Sasuke already knew that his entire family was crazy. They had an actual medical history of it; too much inbreeding, maybe, or too many psychos with God complexes having kids.

He just hadn't thought he'd go crazy too.

He sat crouched, holding his head and trying to ignore the little voice that told him he was going to go crazier than them all, unleash –

"You okay?" Naruto's voice was quiet.

"Fine." Sasuke stood. "Let's get this over with."

They win, of course. But Sasuke's time hadn't quite broken the city record, and already the only thing everyone can talk about is the next year, the next race. The last one before they graduate – and there's rumors, the school board says, that this year they want people running in pairs.

* * *

The year passed.

* * *

Naruto got into scuffles sometimes. Sasuke knows he gets cornered by the bigger kids behind the school sometimes, or caught in the middle of a fight between the other kids at the home.

But when Naruto turns up on the day of the race sporting a black eye and limping, Sasuke wants to kill him.

"Hey Sasuke." Naruto's smile is cracked and bloody, but just as cheerful as ever. "Uh, I kinda need new sneakers."

Sasuke takes a look at his injuries, grinds his teeth, and doesn't ask.

They go to the tiny sports supply two blocks over, Sasuke huffing and glancing back at the school the entire time.

"I will leave you here," he says finally, as Naruto browses rows of sneakers and the clock ticks closer and closer to the time they are supposed to run. "I will leave you here and run on my own."

Naruto glanced at him. "No harm in being a little late."

Of course. Naruto didn't _understand_. And why would he, without any idea of what it was like to feel trapped, to never feel good enough, to be right on the verge of success or failure that would shape the rest of his life.

Disqualification isn't something he can risk.

"For this," Sasuke said, "yes. There is."

"Kakashi was always late," Naruto mumbled at a pair of blue trainers.

Sasuke jammed his hands in his pockets. "Who?"

Naruto shook his head, slowly, like a dog trying to get water out of its ears. "Nothing. Just, this bump to the head... I blacked out on the pavement a second back there, and it just. Knocked something loose, I dunno."

_No_, Sasuke thought. _No no no no, this is not the time_. "Shut up."

"Remember what I was talking about that time? Years ago? About everything having gone wrong? I thought it meant that the world had screwed us over, or some shit, and we were getting a do-over. And I didn't get it, because like, if this is our reward why the fuck is life so shitty this time too?"

"Shut up," Sasuke repeated. The clerk was starting to look at them oddly. "Pick out your fucking shoes and buy them and let's _go_."

"But that's not it, I don't think," Naruto continued, oblivious. "I think _we_ fucked up, and this is our second chance. Our chance to make it right."

_Stop it stop it stop it_. In blind panic, Sasuke did what he always did when Naruto got to be too much; punched him in the face.

There was a silence as Naruto doubled over, busted lip opening again and bleeding into the carpet. Vaguely, Sasuke thought he could hear the clerk calling the cops.

"And then I wondered," Naruto continued after a moment, straightening up and looking right at Sasuke this time, staring him right in the face, "who was it that fucked up, Sasuke? Was it both of us? Or was it _you_?" And he punched Sasuke in the stomach, shoving him back into the rows of boxes and sending sneakers cascading to the floor. "You stupid, selfish, guilt-faced, raging _jerk_."

Sasuke could remember the end now, like a dream from a thousand years ago. He could remember the flames, and that stupid whiskered face still watching him, still hoping, still saying, _'Just take my hand.'_

Naruto leaves without any shoes, saying he'll borrow sensei's. Sasuke slaps some money down on the counter to pay for damages and follows him.

The race begins, and they don't talk.

Naruto's faster than he's ever been. The heat of the sun, the burning in Sasuke's lungs, the hard impact of the tarmac – that's all the same, but what's not is the sight of Naruto's back in front of him on the track, faster than him, outstripping him easily.

For once in his life, Sasuke's chasing Naruto, and he's not sure he can catch up.

He just knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he wants to.

Naruto finishes in some sort of stupid record time and then collapses across the line unconscious, and Sasuke forgets the TV cameras, the coaches, his parents, the college recruiters, and follows him to the emergency room.

It's the first unselfish thing he's done in a long, long time.

It feels like the start of something new.

* * *

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	12. Time Travel (Continued)

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. :3

**A/N:** Set 1 minute after 'The One Where There's Time Travel,' but can be read independently. Written for Greenlight6 in the Timestamp Meme.

* * *

**The One Where There's Time Travel (Continued)**

* * *

_"So," said the Copy Ninja casually. "Who are you, and where is Uchiha Sasuke? You have ten seconds."_

* * *

It had been a hunch.

Kakashi had fought two wars relying on gut instinct, and he was still breathing. Almost all ninja died young, but they died youngest when they were stupid.

Kakashi wasn't stupid.

The thing in Uchiha's body didn't react or panic, brief moment of surprise hidden quickly and skillfully.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Kakashi hoped that the real Uchiha kid wasn't dead. "Eight seconds."

Calculating eyes stared up at Kakashi. "I _am_ Uchiha."

And, well, that certainly wasn't true.

"Six. Five –"

The boy smiled – it pulled, unnaturally, at his face – and ducked his head. "You always were good," he said.

Kakashi wondered if he'd need the Sharingan for this. ANBU would engage if he didn't return in fifteen minutes, but, well. A lot could happen in fifteen minutes. "Where is Sasuke-kun?"

A smirk. "Long gone."

Kakashi filed that away for later. It fit in nicely next to the memory of Obito's crushed, broken body.

"You didn't have to kill him, you know. Sasuke-kun was a good kid. He deserved better."

"He didn't."

Kakashi looked at him carefully. There was a blankness, a frayed insanity here that he almost recognized. There was only one person he could think of with both a vendetta against the Uchiha and the ability to impersonate one so well. The possibility was not comforting.

The imposter's eyes were impossibly dark. "And no, I'm not Itachi."

* * *

The game was up, and it had only taken a day.

"You're not Itachi," Kakashi repeated carefully. He could still reduce Sasuke to a useless child, sitting and staring up at his teacher like he was that 12-year-old, screaming and furious and tied to a tree. "Then why are you doing this?"

"You'd never believe me if I told you."

Slowly, the Jounin crouched. One pale eye looked directly into Sasuke's. "Try me."

As if it could be that easy to just say –

_Itachi was ordered to slaughter us all._

His voice wouldn't come.

_Your village put my family to death. _

There was no air in his lungs to form the words.

Sasuke wondered if this was it, the world balanced on the head of a pin and his one chance about to pass him by because he _couldn't fucking -_

"They told him it was for peace." It tumbled out of its own accord, escaping like air after a punch to the gut. "They gave him orders, and they told him it was for peace."

And he saw Kakashi's eye change from studied disinterest to –

"Itachi Uchiha," said Kakashi, "went insane. There were no orders."

"If there had been," Sasuke said, "would you have known?"

* * *

The Hokage's doors were wide and oaken. ANBU slipped in and out, faceless and silent, carrying their request for an audience to the Sandaime.

If Kakashi was honest with himself, he didn't _want_ the apathetic, damaged boy at his side to be Sasuke, or his fantastical tale to be true. Fortunately, Kakashi was well-practiced at not being honest with himself.

"How did you figure it out?" Sitting with arms braced over his knees, these were the first words the boy had said since arriving.

"Hidden villages are hubs of espionage," said Kakashi. "This may shock you, but we're not stupid."

With Uchiha, the tells had never been obvious. He hadn't failed to answer to his own name, or broadcasted unfamiliar chakra. But the boy showed apathy where Kakashi had expected grumpiness, and stood with arms folded as if beneath a cloak that wasn't there, or propped on a sword that only he could see.

More than this, Konoha was built on blood feuds; the cycle of death and revenge was the foundation of ninja society, and Sasuke had suddenly forgotten his vengeance against the brother that had slaughtered his entire family.

"It's not," Kakashi explained, "the kind of thing you just let go."

"And you would know?"

"I know that the sins of our fathers eat at us."

The boy looked away. "Maybe I'm stronger than that."

"You're not. You'd have to forgive him first, and there isn't a ninja in this village who could do that."

"There is," Sasuke said. "You just haven't noticed him yet."

* * *

It took three days – of accusations and screaming, of Sarutobi's haggard face and Danzo's cold cells – for Sasuke to grow quietly, utterly furious with Kakashi's refusal to leave, and try to get rid of him.

"I killed you," said Sasuke. "Three years ago."

"Late one too many times, was I?" Kakashi asked his porn.

So, that hadn't really gone as expected.

* * *

On day four, Kakashi watched Naruto Uzumaki stomp down to Sasuke's cell, kick the barred door, and then grumpily offer him some tomato ramen.

* * *

On day five, Sasuke tasted fresh air.

He also received a formal apology from the village Elders. He walked out, because this body wasn't powerful enough to kill everyone in the room.

* * *

Kakashi watched his three idiots pass the Bell Test, then took them out for food.

"Why did you believe me?" Uchiha asked, eyes on the _onigiri_ in hand.

Kakashi shrugged. "I've failed your family enough."

"I _killed_ you," the boy said slowly.

"So you said."

"You didn't put up much of a fight."

"I'm sure there were people I was eager to see."

Uchiha glared at the riceball. "I was trying to kill someone else and you _got in my way_."

"Did your little brother get in the way too?" Kakashi tried.

"I'm still not Itachi."

"You act like him," Kakashi said mildly.

* * *

Sasuke didn't want to go to Wave Country. Kakashi threatened to go without him –

_Naruto, limp on the ground and covered in needles –_

- and five seconds later, Sasuke was packing.

* * *

Sasuke left Konoha one month after the Chuunin exam.

He went to see Naruto just once. He got yelled at for skipping out and ruining their team, yelled at for running away. He left his _hitai-ate_ behind. Sakura cried.

Some things never, ever changed.

But some things did, and he camped by water on first night, dandelions covering the grassy field. As the sun went down he could hear birdsong from the high cliffs.

The Valley of the End was peaceful.

* * *

It took a year to find Itachi.

He appeared in a layer of illusions, and Sasuke told him to sit down before he made the disease even worse.

"Leave before I snap your neck, little brother," Itachi said, because he didn't _get _it yet.

"You didn't do it when the Elders ordered you to," Sasuke said. "You won't do it now."

There was a silence.

"How long ago did you kill me, in your world?" Itachi finally asked, and fuck, couldn't Sasuke get one over on _anybody_?

* * *

The next time Sasuke saw Konoha, it was a flaming crater. Beasts poured into the lower town as Pein stood above them, watchful and silent.

Sasuke should, in retrospect, have come home a little sooner.

Somewhere in the haze of battle he caught a flash of blond, warped by the hurricane winds bursting to life in Naruto's hands.

Susanoo roared in the sky, and they stood back to back against the demons.

* * *

Kakashi found his wayward protégé three hours after the battle's end. He was sitting in splintered ruins, surrounded by bodies and covered from head to toe in blood and dust. His clothes were singed and his hands grimy, a long-necked _sake_ bottle looped under two fingers.

He looked more peaceful than Kakashi had ever seen him.

Kakashi sat down, and accepted the offered bottle. He wondeed what Sasuke saw when he looked at the bodies strewn on the streets of his ancestral Uchiha home. If it felt blasphemous, or familiar.

"So," he said after a moment. "Sasuke."

"You still had doubts?"

"You changed a lot, that day." Sasuke had been – kind, once. Kakashi should have known it was the kindest ones that broke the hardest.

Sasuke snorted, but didn't answer. He was looking toward the village, at the two weary figures coming closer.

"Hey, hey!" Naruto's flame-patterned coat was rent and torn. He and Sakura both bore soot, bandages, and tired but relieved expressions.

"Sensei," Sakura said with a smile as they came to a stop. She raised her chin. "Sasuke."

Kakashi was an idealist. He would deny it to his last breath, but once in a very long while he would see something that reminded him of Obito's optimism and Rin's cleverness and –

Sasuke stared at them like they were wayward children, like they were his salvation, like he could see a million possible futures unfolding before him.

"Well," he said with almost a smile, "I'm back."

* * *

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